


Barbarian

by dandelionlily



Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Mind Control, Unbeta'd
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-27
Updated: 2010-11-27
Packaged: 2018-01-04 01:04:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1075228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dandelionlily/pseuds/dandelionlily
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A mind-controlled Superman attacking someone other than Batman? What's going on?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Barbarian

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt "Beowulf"

 Batman tapped his communicator. “Scarecrow’s on his way to Arkham, O. What have you got for me?”

 “It’s Superman.” Oracle’s voice was detached; Batman knew immediately that she had bad news. “He seems to have gone insane.” She didn’t add “again,” but Batman heard it anyway.

 “Dammit. What’s his ETA?” Batman was already arranging his belt so the most extreme options were right at his fingertips. It would take more than a smoke bomb or a batarang to bring down the man of steel.

 “He’s not coming for you.”

 “He’s . . . what?” Superman always came for Batman first. It was an unwritten rule: he’d only take over the world after he’d taken a couple of swings at Batman. After all, everyone knew that there was only one person on the planet who had more green Kryptonite stockpiled than Batman. “Did he go after Luthor?”

 “No. He’s spent the last half-an-hour entertaining crowds by wrestling animals at the Gotham Zoo.”

 There was a moment of stunned silence. “Publicity stunt for some charity?”

 “Not unless he’s trying to raise money for animal abusers. He’s injured a polar bear, a water buffalo and an African elephant. The zookeepers are apoplectic.” The noise of typing transmitted for half a minute, then Oracle was back with, “There’s no one in the rogues gallery, or in any police or federal database, who has a history of mind-controlling people into abusing animals.”

 “And any intelligent mind-controller would have sent him after me, to take me out before I could figure out a way to stop Superman. We should assume, at this point, that he’s acting on his own.”

 “Red K.” Oracle suggested.

 “Or actual insanity.” He talked over Oracle’s protest, “It’s a contingency we need to prepare for.” Batman reached his tumbler and quickly changed into his most protective non-mechanized suit. The ceramic plates could stop a bullet, spread out the force of a blunt impact, and resist heat transfer.

 “Be careful, B. The league’s stretched pretty thin trying to stop the tsunami in Indonesia, especially with Superman MIA. I can’t promise you any backup.”

 “I’ll be at the zoo in eleven minutes, forty-five seconds.” Batman slipped into the driver’s seat and floored the gas pedal.

 ---

 Batman double-parked in the crowded parking lot. It was a Saturday afternoon and there were no spaces left large enough for the tumbler. He vaulted a seven-foot wooden fence and came up behind Commissioner Gordon, who was trying with increasing desperation to evacuate the crowd. They were largely ignoring the police bullhorn, instead pushing and shoving to get closer to the enclosures with the big cats. Batman could blame Catwoman for his familiarity with this area of the zoo.

 “Commissioner.”

 Gordon didn’t startle the way he used to when Batman would come up behind him. “Thank God you’re here. There is something seriously wrong with your friend in blue.”

 “What happened?”

 “Witnesses report he showed up forty-five minutes ago. When a security guard asked him why he was there, he announced that, as Earth’s mightiest hero, he had come to prove his mettle in battle.”

 “Then he attacked the caged animals.”

 “Not exactly his usual M.O., is it? The security guard called us, and we got here twenty minutes ago. I told my men to wait and watch.”

 “Good. Where is he now?”

 “In with the Bengal tigers.” Batman shot off his grapple line to one of the supports on the monkey cage and swung away.

 The Superman he found in the Bengal tiger enclosure was not the one Batman had called friend, colleague and hero for so many years. He was sprawled across a rock pile, an empty bottle of whiskey in one hand, his uniform in wrinkled disarray, snoring loudly. A tiger cub, bolder than its siblings, was tugging on the cape, while its mother chewed on one of the man of steel’s ankles. She was fierce--angry and frightened by this bizarre invasion--and had already broken a few of her teeth.

 Batman sighed as he made his way silently down into the fenced area. When this was all over, he’d probably have to rekindle his on-again off-again relationship with Selina just to keep an eye on her so she couldn’t get her hands on Kryptonite. Catwoman wasn’t known for her forgiving nature. Batman skirted the frenzied tigress and drew a neural dampener headband from his belt. If he could get it on Superman without waking him, he could get the Kryptonian back to the cave for medical analysis without any fuss or property destruction.

 Batman reached out and Superman latched onto his left wrist. An unfamiliar, predatory grin stretched the man of steel’s features, and Batman knew then that he had only been playing possum. “I’ve been waiting for you, Batman. None here can match my strength or skill, but you . . . you are a worthy opponent.”

 Batman ignored the twisted compliment and made a last-ditch effort to secure the neural dampener. From a prone position, Superman flipped the dark knight and pinned him in a shoulder-lock, then crushed the headband into powder under his knee.

 “How easily you fall to my strength,” Superman mocked. “The poets won’t waste their breath describing such a pathetic battle.” The man of steel released Batman and stood. “Try again, monster, and this time make it worth my time.”

 Batman didn’t bother with witty repartee. He palmed some plastique and started to open the lead-lined belt compartment containing the Kryptonite ring. Superman must have been waiting for just that because his reaction was instantaneous: his heat vision melted the lead, temporarily sealing the compartment. Batman rolled with the super speed tackle and sneered when Superman’s attempt to remove the belt triggered a pulse of electricity strong enough to stun the man of steel. He continued sneering through the pain when Superman’s involuntary muscle contractions broke Batman’s two lower ribs and prevented him from reaching the Kryptonite.

 With a bellow, Superman broke the utility belt and tossed it to the far side of the enclosure where the tigers were hiding. That left Batman with only the plastique he had grabbed earlier, some lock picks secreted in his boots and his wits to fight an insane Superman. He eeled out of the stronger man’s grip and scrambled away. “No more tricks,” Superman warned. “We will fight skill against skill alone.”

 “I think the odds are slightly in your favor at hand fighting,” Batman drawled, watching closely for some flicker of recognition; they were both paraphrasing one of Clark’s favorite movies. Nothing. Did this Clark know who he was? Did he know who Bruce was? Batman always found it perturbing when Superman forgot him. Even when flung to the far reaches of time, ignorant of his own name or purpose, Bruce had remembered that someone who could hear molecules bonding would be searching for him. Why did Superman lack that same subconscious certainty in Batman?

 Superman strode over, his bearing regal. Batman tensed as he came within striking distance, but waited. “Attack with another gadget and I will simply incinerate you with my heat vision. Refrain, and I will use no powers but my god-given strength. Do you understand?”

 “Perfectly,” Batman growled while doing a forward handspring off the man of steel’s shoulders and slapping the plastique on his back. The explosion was large enough to knock Superman off his feet; Batman had time to get within fifteen feet of his utility belt before heat vision strobed across his path. The dark knight flowed smoothly into an acrobatic evasive maneuver Dick had taught him the previous month. A nagging uncertainty gnawed at him, and he remembered as he came out of a roll that he had used this exact maneuver when sparring against Superman the previous weekend.

 Superman might be amnesiac, but his muscle memory and battle reflexes were spot-on. Heat vision lanced across Batman’s back. The specially-designed suit dispersed the heat as much as possible, reducing the wound to a severe second-degree burn but spreading it across much of his back. Batman moved through the agony, but his fingers only brushed against his belt before the Man of Steel snatched it and tossed it half a mile away. Batman hoped that, when all this was over, he could find the belt before some half-assed villain got his hands on the Kryptonite, smoke bombs and other devices inside.

 Unfortunately, he had rather more pressing matters at that moment. Batman and Superman circled each other warily. Batman wasn’t sure what his opponent was waiting for; he was stalling for time to allow the zoo patrons to evacuate. Apparently a bit of plastique had convinced the families to leave where a crazy Superman and Gotham’s finest had failed. Superman darted in; Batman landed a solid kick to his solar plexus, but it didn’t even slow down the man of steel. They wrestled. Batman abandoned direct attacks, working instead to go with the flow of Superman’s movement and use momentum against his attacker.

 They broke apart again five minutes later, both breathing hard. Batman was sweat-slick inside his insulated suit and the salt stung his burns. His cracked ribs ached with every breath. He was running out of time. “O, do you read me?” he asked. He waited for Oracle’s grunt of confirmation, then directed, “Get everyone out of the zoo. Every patron, every policeman, and especially every news crew.” He cast a baleful eye at the camera lenses focused on him.

 Superman lost patience and charged again. Many in the league wondered, when Batman and Superman sparred at the watchtower, if the man of steel went easy on his human colleague. Superman had tried to explain that while he was faster than a speeding bullet, Bruce usually found him about as predictable as one, and human speed didn’t stop Batman from dodging bullets in his daily routine. As long as Batman could predict the man of steel’s movements, he could stay a fraction of a second ahead and out of harm’s way.

 “Give me ten minutes,” Oracle said.

 Batman ducked a punch and managed to throw Superman, gaining an instant’s reprieve. “Faster would be better,” he muttered.

 “I’m not a miracle worker!” Oracle lied. Already Batman could hear small explosions and sirens coming from the north. The news reporters must have thought whatever they overheard on the police radio was more exciting than yet another Batman vs. mind-controlled Superman story. Within three minutes, there was nobody left watching the fight.

 It was just in time. Superman slammed Batman against one of the concrete retaining walls and pressed a forearm against the cowl’s neck guard. The dark knight nearly passed out at the combined flares of agony from his burned back and broken ribs, but hung on grimly to consciousness. “You fought well, monster,” the man of steel proclaimed, his tone dripping smugness. “Though you were are no match for me, the poets will sing of your last battle for many years.”

 “Wrong,” Batman managed, his voice strained. “No one’s watching.”

 Superman looked up at the edge of the pit where his audience had stood. His face twisted into a comical look of betrayal when he realized his only observer was a chickadee. Then it twisted into something far worse. “I suppose I’ll take a trophy as proof. The wing of a great bat would be a fine one, don’t you agree?” Superman grabbed Batman’s left wrist and started pulling, slow and steady. Batman’s shoulder popped out of its socket, but Superman didn’t stop, listening to the tearing ligaments and tendons.

 “Stop!” To his disgust, Batman realized he was begging.

 The pressure on the Dark Knight’s arm socket eased. “Why should I? You deprived me of my share of glory; you owe me a trophy.”

 “I can give you far greater glory and hundreds of trophies,” Batman assured him. “Let me go back to the Cave. All of my trophies are there. I will set up cameras and broadcast the end of our fight.” Batman had to physically bite his tongue to stop himself from adding “please.” The blood tasted like salt and copper.

 “You have cameras?”

 “You’ll have a worldwide audience for my death.”

 “Very well. Retreat to your lair and prepare yourself for death, monster.”

 Batman bowed his head and remained silent. He would be prepared when Superman came for him.

 ---

 “Is anyone in the manor?” Batman steered the tumbler around vehicles on the freeway and took the exit at four times the posted speed limit.

 Oracle’s voice was calm in his ear: “It’s empty. Tim’s at school and Alfred is visiting a lady friend.”

 “Good. That’s . . . Alfred is doing what?”

 “He’s old, not dead. Concentrate, B. You’ve still got a rogue Kryptonian on your ass.”

 “I hadn’t forgotten.” The switch-backs up the side of the hill were harder to manage with only one arm; the tumbler barely stayed on the path. It went through the waterfall at sixty miles an hour and skidded to a stop inside. Batman was out of the tank before its wheels stopped turning.

 First things first. Batman opened the vault, retrieved the entire half pound of green Kryptonite he kept on hand at all times and set it on the workbench. He hit the cave’s emergency lock down button and set the deterrents to their highest level, then retrieved his backup utility belt. On a hunch, he did a full-body radiation scan, smiling grimly at the results. Only then did he take the time to pop his left shoulder back into its socket. He retrieved his rebreather, removed his cowl and donned his skin-diving suit. He carried the rest of his equipment over to the edge of the underground river that flowed through the cave system.

 There was no time for further preparation. The cave shook when Superman smashed through the cavern’s roof, bypassing most of the security measures. He was carrying a metal canister attached to a hose and nozzle. In the instant it took for Batman to realize the alien’s goal, Superman used the handheld acid sprayer to dissolve the Kryptonite while hovering a safe distance above. The alien turned his arrogant gaze to the uncowled Batman and a look of confusion crossed his face. “Who are you, stranger?”

 Bruce’s eyebrows climbed. Amnesiac or not, Superman wasn’t usually this dense. “You don’t recognize me?”

 Superman shrugged. “I suppose the bat crawled off to die and left you to fight in his place.”

 Despite the situation, the corner of Bruce’s mouth twitched. “That’s one way of looking at it.” As casually as he was able, Bruce slipped on a pair of fins and a diving mask. “Catch me if you can,” he taunted as he did a backward flip into the strong current.

 Bruce swam for the center of the river, where the current was strongest. The full-body radiation scan had revealed red Kryptonite dust on the batsuit after his fight with Superman. Bruce gambled on the strong current washing away any particles that were clinging to--and affecting--the man of steel.

 Superman actually had trouble catching up to Bruce. He had forgotten how to swim efficiently and seemed disoriented by the eddies and currents. The fins boosted Bruce’s power enough to keep him in the lead; he swam downstream near the bottom and stayed ahead of Superman for just over half a mile. At that part of the subterranean river, submerged rocks made the swim treacherous. When he slowed to find the best way around the boulders, Bruce felt someone grab his right fin. A beam of heat vision shot past, boiling the water six inches away from his face. Bruce struggled to swim around one of the boulders, but the current slammed him against it and knocked the rebreather out of his mouth. The collision jostled his injured ribs and shoulder and knocked the air out of him as well.

 Given preparation time and pure oxygen, the dark knight could hold his breath for just under twenty minutes. Relying on just the diving reflex and lungs full of air, he could survive underwater for seven minutes and thirteen seconds. With deflated lungs he knew he had only four minutes, fifty-two seconds to reach the surface. Unfortunately, he couldn’t even be sure which direction that was in; the current was tumbling him every which way. Two minutes, eleven seconds left. He crashed into another submerged rock. One minute, thirty-three seconds.

 Viselike grips closed around his upper arms and held him pinned against the rock. Bruce kicked uselessly and glared at the man of steel. One minute, four seconds. Clark’s eyes were luminous in the near-darkness and his face was inches from Bruce’s. Thirty-eight seconds. Bruce’s lungs ached with the need to inhale; it was all he could do to fight down the reflex for a few more seconds. Twenty-one seconds.

 Cool lips sealed against Bruce’s and blew air into his lungs. Then invulnerable arms cradled his abused body and pulled him to the surface. Bruce gulped the air. “My god, Bruce, are you all right?”

 “Peachy,” Bruce gasped. “I guess the river worked?”

 “Mostly. I’m still feeling a bit . . . intoxicated. But the amnesia and . . . ah . . ."

 “Personality change?” Bruce suggested.

 “Yeah. That seems to be gone.” Superman scooped the dark knight into his arms and flew upriver towards the medical lab. He looked at Bruce and got the focused expression he always wore while using x-ray vision. “B, your ribs. I’m so sorry.”

 Bruce snorted, then winced. “No big deal. You know how often my ribs get broken; I don’t think they were even fully healed from last time. And it’s been almost a month since the last time you were mind-controlled; you were overdue.”

 “Gee, thanks.” Superman was annoyed now, but Bruce preferred that to guilty. Not that there was anything particularly wrong with guilt; Batman could probably wheedle an upgrade to the Watchtower’s security from this fiasco. They reached the medical lab and Superman set him down on the examination table.

 “How did you get exposed to the red K?”

 “Oh god,” Superman exclaimed, suddenly remembering something.

 Bruce leaned forward over the protests of his ribs. “Kal. What is it?”

 “I caught Lois Lane when she was falling off a building.”  Superman handed him the athletic wrap.

 “Naturally; it is a Tuesday, after all. Wait, are you saying Lois deliberately exposed you to Kryptonite dust?” Bruce started going over nonlethal ways to neutralize Lane while he taped his ribs.

 “No! I think one of Luthor’s thugs sprinkled it on her before throwing her out the window.”

 “So Luthor’s up to something and wants you distracted.”

 “As you said, it’s a Tuesday. But that’s not the problem.”

 “Oh?” Bruce finished wrapping his ribs and moved on to trying to immobilize his injured shoulder.

 Superman took the wrap out of his hands and finished the bandaging. “The red Kryptonite has a certain . . . ah . . . effect on me.”

 “Lowering inhibitions, I know. What, did Lois object to you wanting to have sex with her?”

 “In midair over a busy street? Yes, she did. She hit me with her purse.” Bruce took a moment to marvel at the mettle of a woman who could get thrown out of a window and molested by Superman and still hang on to her purse. “She also called me a barbarian.”

 There was a significant pause. “That’s it?” Bruce finally asked. “She called you a barbarian, so you decided to go wrestle elephants and try to tear the arm off of a bat-man?”

 Superman paled at the reminder. “Bruce . . .”

 “Answer the damn question.”

 “I wasn’t thinking clearly. I couldn’t even remember your identity. I actually thought you were some sort of demon. B, I don’t know how to apologize--”

 “You were open to suggestion. That’s not a usual side effect of red K.” Bruce’s eyes narrowed in calculation. “If it wasn’t Kryptonite, it was almost certainly magic. There was probably a combination of the two in the powder on Lois. When you go to confront Luthor, take Zatanna or Dr Fate with you.”

 Superman nodded. “Fine. But I’m not going until you’re taken care of.”

 Bruce rolled his eyes in response. “I’m mummified in bandages, and I’m not planning on going out until tonight. No one else is going to attack me here in the cave.”  Superman winced at that. “Luthor’s plans for world domination take precedence over tucking me in. Although, if you find a minute after saving the world, please retrieve my utility belt. I’m awfully fond of that ring.”

 Shamefaced, Superman took off. “Oh, and Superman?” He paused in midair, head cocked. “Your mouth-to-mouth technique needs practice.” Superman’s cheeks flushed the color of his cape and he was gone in a puff of air.

 Batman gave the restrained chuckle of a man who knows not to laugh hard with broken ribs and walked over to his computer. He’d have to replace his stockpile of green Kryptonite; a raid on one of Luthor’s safehouses seemed appropriate. There was one thing he had to take care of first, though . . .

 “Selina? This is Bruce. Would you like to accompany me to the grand opening of the Gotham Art Museum’s new Egyptian exhibit? I hear the Bastet statues are simply marvelous.”

**Author's Note:**

> Someday I'm going to write up a DC superhero calendar with recurring events:  
> Twice a week: Lois Lane falls off a building  
> Once a week: Luthor tries to take over the world  
> Once a month: jailbreak at Arkham; Joker escapes  
> Every other month: mind-controlled Superman attacks Batman  
> Twice a year: major male character resurrected or pulled in from a different continuity  
> Three times a year: major female/gay/POC character dies pointlessly  
> Once a year: new continuity introduced  
> Every five years: entire universe rebooted.
> 
> DC Superheroes would be much more efficient if they just recognized the patterns and planned accordingly.


End file.
